Fragile Cord (7 page)

‘Angus,’ he began, ‘had anything been
troubling Tracey recently?’

He was now in Angus’s eyeline, could see
the fog that had descended behind his eyes as he tried to make
sense of what he’d stumbled upon upstairs.

‘Was she taking any prescribed
medication for depression?’

The cogs in Angus’s cloudy brain turned
slowly as he computed the detective’s questions.

‘
Here we go
.’

Alex bustled back into the room
carrying a tray laden with a matching teapot and cups, a jug of
milk and a sugar bowl. The crockery was one of the expensive ranges
in the window display at Kendals - Denby, Coupland thought – beyond
his price range anyway. Alex busied herself with the milk and
sugar, talking aloud as she took on the role of mother, prising the
glass out of Angus’s hand and replacing it with a cup of hot sugary
tea.

‘Drink it down,’ she instructed him,
‘like Watney’s Brown,’ and they watched as he did as he was told,
sipping the liquid slowly at first, then, as it began to cool
taking larger and larger gulps until it was gone.

‘Angus isn’t a Salford name.’ She
twittered, filling the void, then poured tea into two more cups
passing one to Coupland and taking one herself before remembering
the PC and gesturing to him. He moved his head reluctantly to
indicate a ‘no,’ peeved at being the afterthought, carried on
bouncing on the balls of his feet, albeit more slowly now.

‘I was born in Scotland.’

Both Coupland and Alex snapped their
attention back onto Angus, who seemed to have emerged from his
trance-like state.

‘My parents and sister are still up
there.’ He said. ‘I left the fold when I came to study at Salford
uni, met Tracey, never went back.’

He was well spoken,
Coupland thought, recognising the universal plummy public school
tone in his voice. There wasn’t much of a Scottish accent, though,
more an inflection, a genteel hint of a brogue. There was a Scot at
the station, IT support or some such title which basically meant he
came round unplugging the terminals and plugging them back in
whenever anything went wrong. Rebooting them or whatever. Everyone
called him Scotch Jim. He hailed from Glasgow and his accent was
thick and guttural and when he was pissed he chanted
Flower of Scotland
and
showed everyone his arse. When he was angry his words all rolled
into one and no one could really understand what he said but went
along with him anyway so as not to cause offence.

Angus’s accent was softer, more upper
middle class.

‘Whereabouts in Scotland?’ Alex asked
him.

‘Edinburgh.’

Ah
….

‘Beautiful city.’ Coupland commented.
He’d never been, but had seen enough Hogmanay shows over the years
to think it warranted a visit one day.

Angus nodded, distracted; the hall
stairs creaked as body bags containing Tracey, then Kyle were
carried outside to the waiting mortuary van. The PC moved
soundlessly towards the door ready to be on hand if needed. Angus
moved his head as he followed the sound, pushed himself to his feet
and shuffled unsteadily to the large bay window in time to see the
van doors open and swallow up his family.

‘When can I see them?’

His voice rasped as
though it hurt when he spoke and his breathing became ragged.
Coupland could see the horror of reality start to set in, that
apart from the mortuary and the funeral home, Angus would never see
Tracey or Kyle again. Certainly not in the way he was used to –
laughing and joking and very much
alive
.

‘Later. I’ll take you later, Angus.’
Coupland replied, ‘In the meantime I need you to help me put
together a list of Tracey’s movements today, where she’d been, who
she might have spoken to. A list of her friends, relatives,
anything that can…..’ he could tell he was losing him, his eyes had
become dull again, his skin took on a waxy pallor as though he was
going to be sick.

‘Where d’you keep your address book
Angus?’

Alex was back on her feet again,
walking out into the hallway opening all the adjoining doors until
she found what she was looking for. A small room, used as an
office, containing a large oak computer desk and leather chair at
one end, a small settee and coffee table at the other. A computer
screen sat on top of the desk, beneath it the computer’s hard
drive, a printer perching precariously at one end, beneath a
wall-mounted phone. A small shelf displayed a dozen CD ROMs and
several paper clips. A pile of taxi receipts and expense forms were
weighed down by a leather-bound Filofax. Alex picked it up and
hurried back to Angus.

‘Is this it?’ she asked him, holding it
aloft. This time she sat beside him while she waited for him to
respond. When he moved his head in the tiniest of nods she flicked
open the fastener with her thumb.

‘Here, let me go through it with
you…’

While Alex worked
though the names and addresses of friends and family with Angus,
Coupland wandered back out into the hall, keen to get a better feel
for the place. He glanced inside each room for signs of something
amiss, or even signs of
anything
for that matter. The presence of something – or
the absence of it – that would help him on his mission to find a
reason. Filicide, where a parent murders their child, causes
shockwaves right through to the family’s core, spreading out into
the community. For most people it was inconceivable, an aberration,
an act against humanity. When that parent goes on to kill him or
herself, it leaves more questions than answers, as those left
behind struggle to come to terms with betrayal
and
rejection, to find meaning in
their loved one’s final words and actions.

It was not unusual for someone on the
brink of suicide to make preparations; to tidy their home, to make
sure their insurance and finance were in order. Many saw it as
leaving nothing to chance, a clumsy way of trying to minimise pain.
This was the reason that they left a note, to absolve blame and
explain their impatience to move on to another world. Tracey had
left her home spotless, but there had been no note, only a ticked
off shopping list on the kitchen work-top and a To-do list for the
school’s summer fair. Coupland’s gaze swept each room looking for a
hint of discord: a solicitor’s letter threatening court action
maybe, torn up photographs or forgotten shards of smashed crockery
lying on the floor, tell-tale dents in the walls, but there were
none.

Moving from room to room he surveyed
every living space, each one a picture of suburban calm. Yet
something troubled him, niggled away at the base of his skull and
he tried to focus on it now as he headed back through the kitchen
to the mud-room he’d found himself in earlier. Muffled voices
wafted through from the hallway but he stayed put. If he were
needed Alex or one of the uniforms would come looking for him.

Despite the circumstances of his visit
he liked this room; the large windows ensured the maximum exposure
to natural light, and looked out onto a vast well-stocked garden
that suggested a gardener rather than any green fingers on the part
of the owners. To the side of the room an external door led into
the garden, a heavy-duty doormat and boot scraper lay in readiness
for the debris and muck that come hand in hand with small children.
This was the kind of home he would have liked for him and Lynn, all
that space for a growing family, for Amy and the brothers and
sisters they had hoped for her but never arrived. Despite its Grand
Design scale Tracey had turned it into an oasis of security and
love.

Was it really a charade?

And if it wasn’t, what could have
happened to make her wipe out her own flesh and blood?

As Coupland turned from looking out
through the patio doors he found once again he was facing the
little boy’s easel, which had been angled to look out into the
garden. He tried to imagine what the boy had been painting – the
rockery perhaps, or the large sunflowers that swayed in the welcome
breeze? He felt the cogs turning in his brain, alerting him to the
fact that something wasn’t quite right. Retracing his steps into
the hallway he took the stairs two at a time before cutting across
the landing, opening every door until he found a room painted in
primary colours with a bed the shape of a racing car standing pride
of place in the centre.

Every little boy’s dream.

A miniature wardrobe
and chest of drawers stood against a wall, a pit-stop sign had been
stencilled onto the toy cupboard doors. On the far side of Kyle’s
room, beneath the window, was a small desk. On top of the desk was
a ream of blank A4 paper and a wooden pencil case with a sliding
lid. Coupland had owned one himself as a small child, hadn’t
realised they still made them. He walked over to the desk and
picked up the pencil box, sliding open the lid to find half a dozen
charcoal pencils, neatly sharpened. Turning it over in his hands he
found a message carved on the underside of the box:
To Kyle, Merry Christmas, love Grandma and
Grandad, XXXX.

Taking a final look at the empty walls
he hurried back down the stairs and into the sitting room where a
sedated Angus slumped back against the settee, Alex, Filofax open
on her knee, already making the first of a series of calls.

‘Shit.’ Coupland muttered under his
breath as he took in Angus’s vegetative state. ‘I take it that was
the doctor, then. What’s he given him?’

‘Something to deaden him from the neck
up,’ Moreton answered. ‘Why?’

‘Nothing,’ he said dolefully, ‘It’ll
keep.’

Coupland returned to the
station ahead of Alex, who’d stayed on at the Kavanagh house long
enough to help a groggy Angus stumble across to his neighbour’s
home while forensics completed their examination of the property.
She’d called Angus’s father on the phone – a quietly spoken
courteous man, deeply in shock at the news. He’d informed her that
he and his wife would catch the next available flight from
Edinburgh, promising he would call her when they landed.

‘But how did it happen?’ he’d asked.
Alex had skilfully evaded his question; doubted she’d continue to
be so lucky.

‘We can’t be sure yet……’ she’d said
blandly, ‘we’re going to have to carry out tests before we can be
certain….I’m confident we’ll have more information by the time you
arrive.’

There’d been a moment’s
hesitation, and she’d found herself holding her breath in case he
asked her for anything else.

‘Very well then.’ He’d said
deflated, and before she could lie any further to him she heard the
click of the receiver going down, followed by the dialling
tone.

Without
breaking pace Coupland headed toward the bank of interview rooms in
search of Roddy Lewisham, the duty solicitor representing one of
the young girls accused of stealing Melanie Wilson’s bag, the
proximate cause it seemed, of Ricky Wilson’s attack. Either that or
it was a coincidence, he acknowledged, only he’d learned over the
years to distrust
those
.

There’d been no further news
from the hospital – which meant at least Ricky hadn’t deteriorated,
but a couple of hours had passed and the clock was ticking. The
description of the assailants he’d managed to get from Melanie
during his visit to the hospital was being circulated amongst the
press and handed out to drinkers in all the bars along Chorley
Road, close to where the incident had taken place. It wasn’t a
great description – it had been dark and everything happened so
quickly, one minute they were heading for the bus stop and the next
minute two figures with baseball caps lurched towards Ricky. The
men were white – she’d seen white hands holding the knife, white
faces beneath the rim of the caps, but other than that she hadn’t
given them a lot to go on. With any luck Ricky’s description could
fill in the blanks.

As Coupland drew level with the
interview rooms furthest along the corridor he passed a policeman
leading two girls back to the cells. Medium height, they were both
heavy-set with bulky shoulders and hefty thighs beneath white
tracksuits. Fake Ugg boots despite the clement weather. Both girls
sported the Salford knuckle duster – a bank of gold sovereigns on
every finger – and a selection of hollow gold chains hung around
their wide necks. Dirty hair was scraped back from their faces into
ponytails secured high on each girl’s crown with an elastic
band.

Behind them one interview room
lay empty, the next one along had the door slightly ajar and Roddy
Lewisham leaned into the door jamb, his back facing the corridor as
he conferred with a colleague who was seated at a small table
scribbling into a legal pad.

Coupland cleared his throat,
waited for the solicitor to turn around.

‘Kevin!’
Lewisham exclaimed, his eyes softening at the corners when he saw
who it was. They weren’t friends exactly, they didn’t bother
socialising outside work, they were bound by something much deeper.
It had been Coupland who’d found Lewisham’s daughter the night
she’d been murdered, who’d punched Lewisham hard enough to knock
him out cold so his last memory of her wouldn’t be distorted by the
way she’d been found, posed like a mannequin for the gratification
of her killer. Instead it was Coupland who had the image of her
corpse seared into his brain, her sightless eyes wide open in fear.
He hadn’t been able to spare Lewisham much, but at least he’d
spared him from
that
.

When Coupland first met
Lewisham he’d had a fearsome reputation as a defender of the
indefensible. Officers cringed when they heard he’d be representing
their suspects, knew that they’d be in for a rough ride. After his
daughter’s murder he seemed smaller somehow, a reduced version of
his former self. These days he just went through the motions.